What are life and death? Is it possible to understand their essence and give clear definitions? Countless books and articles have been devoted to trying to answer these intriguing questions. However, there are still no definite and generally accepted answers. The intrigue remains. And meanwhile, human attempts to vanquish death and achieve immortality continue apace. This book is an attempt to answer the eternal questions about life and death by analyzing, synthesizing, and rethinking the known facts that characterize life. The material here should be of particular interest, as it contains many hypotheses, philosophical generalizations, and well informed speculations. What is most important for life - matter, energy, or information? How are individual lives and the phenomenon of life in general related? What serves what - does the genome serve the cell or does the cell serve the genome? What is the value of life and death? Can we become immortal? The inquisitive reader willfind original answers to these and other exciting questions in the pages of this stimulating book.

Autorentext

Prof. GennadiyZhegunov holds a doctorate in biological sciences. He is a graduate of the Faculty of Biology of Kharkov National University. From 1975 to 1995 he worked at the Institute of Problems of Cryobiology and Cryomedicine in Kharkov. Prof. Zhegunov was the first to obtain experimental evidence of participation of genome of heterothermal animals in adaptation processes by restructuring the protein synthesis. From 1995 to 2002, he worked as professor and head of Department of Biology at Kharkov National Medical University. There he taught cell biology and genetics to medical students, and actively conducted the research on the effects of freezing on survival and levels of genomic anomalies in animal embryos at the early stages of development. Since 2002, he has been working as a professor, head of Department of Biochemistry at Kharkov State Veterinary Academy, which has been recently reformed into State Biotechnology University. His current research is connected to studying theeffects of freezing on blood cells of various domestic animals. Prof. Zhegunov is author and co-author of more than 200 scientific publications, 5 textbooks and 6 monographs.

Dr. Denys Pogozhykh is actively working in the field of cryobiology and stem cell research since 2004. He has completed his PhD thesis in 2010 at the Institute for Problems of Cryobiology and Cryomedicine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. In 2011, he moved to Germany to continue his research in the field of low temperature biology at the Institute for Multiphase Processes of the Leibniz University of Hannover. Since 2012, Dr. Pogozhykh is working at the Hannover Medical School in Germany. His research is focused on the topics related to regenerative medicine and stem cell research, blood farming, thrombocytopenia and neutropenia, as well as developing of biobanking technologies for multipotent stromal cells, tissues, bioengineered constructs, and blood components. Dr. Pogozhykh is currently involved in the scientific evaluation of clinical and genetic analysis of the patients with orphan disease enrolled in the Severe Chronic Neutropenia International Registry.